


Tired of Eating all of my Misspoken Words

by imperfectkreis



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Anal Fingering, Bisexual Male Character, Choking, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Oral Sex, Praise Kink, Size Kink, Slurs, Slut Shaming, Spit Kink, non-cult AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-04
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-07-07 01:40:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15898326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imperfectkreis/pseuds/imperfectkreis
Summary: So maybe the narrative of how John ended up here is a little longer than the four beers he downs inside this shithole bar in Hope County, Montana. A little more complicated than the big, warm hand that goes steady on the small of his back, full-throated, friendly laughter, asking him if he is okay when he stumbles off the barstool.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as a server joke that we now all ride or die for. Thanks.
> 
> A crack ship I guess, but I promise you this is written with a disturbing amount of sincerity.

John is sure if he backtracks, step by step, he’ll be able to argue through the sequence of events that led him to this moment: On his knees behind the local bar in bumfuck nowhere Montana, just on the cusp of autumn, half-drunk and fully hard, staring down the fattest cock he’s ever seen. 

_Oh, your honor, it seems it all began with a roadside church, a real estate deal half a nation away from home, but somehow achingly familiar, and promising my brothers that I’d play nice._

That being said, John’s seen a lot of dicks in his life, up close and personal. He’s always been ready and more than willing to take them down his throat or up his ass. Sort of has a knack for it, at this point. Luring out the basest desires in those men who hold on the tightest, the fiercest, to their otherwise unassailable masculinity. Enticing exactly those men in suits and ties and shiny patent shoes, who look an awful lot like him. But they have wedding bands on their soft fingers and two little kids at home. Men who might gleefully fuck their secretaries, brag about their escapades to their partners at the firm. But they look the other way in disgust as they slam their cocks down John’s throat. 

Or when John has been known to sneak off at society parties with the elder statesmen of Atlanta, pretty third-or-fourth wives on their arms when they walk into the room. Those men who have sons and daughters from their first marriages just ready to take the bar exam. More than willing to get off on painting the face of such an esteemed member of their own social circle with their cum. John Seed who is always willing to debase himself for a thrill.

So maybe the narrative of how John ended up here is a little longer than the four beers he downs inside this shithole bar in Hope County, Montana. A little more complicated than the big, warm hand that goes steady on the small of his back, full-throated, friendly laughter, asking him if he is okay when he stumbles off the barstool. “Gotta be careful heading out alone at night. The wolves round here are something fierce. Nothing like the cassowary in Rook, those were fuckin’ wild, bro.”

John tugs the stranger’s soft-worn sweatshirt, dragging him back towards the exit of the bar. That little illuminated sign in red and white above the frame guiding John like a star in the night to a promised land of dumpsters and sour, familiar regret. 

The stranger is barrel-chested with his padded gut hung over his nickel belt buckle, pale eyes and a lopsided smile surrounded by a surprisingly neatly-kept beard. He’s probably a decade or so older than John, the fine lines around his eyes and deep ones around his smile giving his age away. John is ready to show this rural local with his ruddy face and acid-wash jeans his teeth and asks him nice and sweet if he’s willing to walk John back to his rented room at the other end of town? He just volunteered, after all.

He’s not the type of man John would normally take to bed, no matter how many times he’d snuck glances at the burly tradesmen populating urban construction sites around Atlanta. Dust and calluses on their hands, dried up cement on the soles of their boots, trying to figure out where to skim $200 for that fancy stroller their girlfriends keep asking about for the baby. John’s considered it before, slipping them a little something to keep quiet about how warm and wet his mouth is. Or how he wants it to hurt when they put it in.

The Montana stranger doesn’t quite fit that archetype either, John realizes in the hazy light of the street lamps. He’s too soft, not just his body, but the rest of him, all smiles and gentle hands skimming over John’s waist, his back, in his hair as John sinks down to his knees. That little gasp of surprise he lets out when John shoves at his hips until he’s back against the wall, feet planted shoulder width apart is too terrifyingly sincere. Not enough expected posturing that he’s not a queer, but he’ll still fuck John’s mouth good and proper. 

The ground is slightly damp, water, maybe water, maybe not. Whatever it is, it’s seeping into the fibers of John’s jeans when he kneels. They cost John three-hundred and fifty dollars three weeks ago. And he doesn’t even care, because every cent he owns, every dime he’s earned for “himself,” doesn’t really belong to him. But to those people who took him in because he was a child young enough that he could be shaped by their brutal hands. Called themselves mother and father, and beat him to a glorious, exhaled pulp, trying so very hard to save John’s wretched soul. Shame it never worked. Joseph is trying the same now...John’s not sure it’s working this time either.

“Oh, ah,” the stranger laughs nervously above John, sticking two fingers between his scalp and American-flag printed bandana tied around his hair and tugging, pulling the fabric away from his forehead. “You oughta not. Normally, well, when a lady sees it. She thinks it’s best to leave well enough alone. Too much, er, big, you know. Sorta embarrassing? You’d think that it’d be a point of pride, but, uh. Usually more trouble than it’s worth.”

John plants his hands firmly on the stranger’s hairy thighs, more muscular than John expected, staring that monster between his legs down. He might have a point. John really doesn’t know how it’s supposed to fit inside his mouth. John hasn’t even touched it yet, but he’s fairly certain that his hand is going to have trouble fitting around. Best he can tell, it isn’t even fully hard yet, part of the foreskin still covering up the dark-flushed head. But once John has taken on a challenge, he’s not one to back down. A whole world of things to say “yes” to, even if it’s about to wreck him.

Especially then.

The beers in his stomach, swimming through his synapses, give him enough courage to lean forward, starting to at least lick around the head, taste the precome just now beaded at the tip. Salty and pleasant as it spreads across his tongue. The scent of salt on skin starts to drown out the rancid, slightly sweet smell from the dumpster a couple of feet down from their position. John wraps his hand around the shaft, mercifully not quite as large as his eyes had assumed, stroking firmly and trying to work it well enough until the stranger is fully hard and ready.

Above him, the stranger won’t shut up, “You know, hah...hah...can’t say I’ve tried being, you know, gay before. But I tell myself, you know, Hurk, don’t knock something before you try it. And boy, you sure are pretty, thought so in the bar. Makes me want to try…”

John can’t help his face flushing at the gentle, unexpected praise. He’s been called a lot of things before. Mostly about how slutty he is, what a whore. Be a good hole and take it. Just like that. Fight a little, if you want, makes it more exciting, but you’ll be put into your place. 

But not once can he remember someone calling him pretty.

Or--

“You look real sweet just like that,” Hurk runs his fingers through John’s hair, knocking his sunglasses into the damp gravel with an ominous thunk and scrape. Might have popped the lens. “I mean it though,” Hurk continues, “Don’t expect you to uh, try and put it in your mouth. If you wanna...your hand just feels real good like that, bro. Real nice, promise.” His head drops back against the wall behind him, a quiet thump as his hips arch out into the circle of John’s hand. With a slow, deliberate tightening of his grip, John wrings from him another little needy screech.

“I like a challenge,” John murmurs, wishing desperately that Hurk do something, anything to make this hurt. To make John feel bad about this, so that he can find his bearings, ground himself in the familiar territory of being wrong and sick and broken.

There’s no ring on Hurk’s finger, but that doesn’t mean a thing. He’s already spoken absentmindedly already about women who couldn’t fit his fat dick in their delicate mouths. Might have half a dozen babies all over the mountainside, after burying himself in their cunts instead. More brats than he could ever keep up with child support. John wonders if Hurk ever sees them. If he treats his children alright, watches them grow up through yearly birthdays, the occasional scheduled visit. Their mothers hanging round in the kitchen, listening in, too nervous about leaving them alone. _Your daddy drinks; I love you so much_.

Tilting his head, John licks a long stripe down the underside of Hurk’s flushed cock, from the tip down to his balls, running his tongue wetly back to the head as the length of it rubs against his face. He takes a deep breath before trying to fully wrap his lips around the tip, instead of just giving it half-hearted kitten licks. Stretching his jaw open, as far as he can manage, he tries to guide Hurk carefully past his teeth. 

John tenses up when he feels Hurk’s hand in his hair again, pulling apart the strands that he carefully gelled in place earlier that afternoon, before his meetings with the real estate agents to finalize on the farms. He expects Hurk to grab, to twist and force his beer can dick down his throat, whether it’ll fit or not. John expects to be ordered to choke on it, churned up spit leaking from the sides of his mouth, gagging around the terrifying girth. But Hurk doesn’t do any of those things. Just runs his fingers through John’s hair, telling him it’s mighty nice of him even trying.

If anything, that just makes John want to take it more, wants to show this hick in the middle of nowhere that he’s not a quitter. That he can take anything Hurk is about to offer up. Better than anyone else he’s likely to meet in this lifetime, or the next. Pressing his tongue down flat, John tries to sink down on it, the width stretching at the corners of his lips until they feel raw and cracked, on the verge of something tearing.

The wail Hurk lets out is inhuman, almost pained, definitely shocked. His hand gets tight around John’s hair, but just as quickly, he’s dropping apologies for being too rough. Even though he hasn’t actually done a thing. But John’s doing things Hurk’s never had done to him before, with or without finesse. Feels so good, he babbles. Never thought it would feel this good.

John looks up at him the best he can, stupidly big dick still crammed about a third of the way in his mouth. Tears at the corners of his eyes from the pressure. Like getting smacked full out in the face with an open hand. Hurk just stares back down at him, mouth hanging open and eyes wide.

“That’s so fucking cool, bro. Wow. I mean...I still can’t get over how damn hot you are, you know? Like one of those magazines they put in the seat pocket of the airplane? Yeah, you’ve got a face like that. Wow, just wow.”

John tries not to laugh around the dick in his mouth. But, God, he never even considered the fact that a man like Hurk has even been on a commercial flight. Some sort of weird, half-formed fantasy that his only experience with the world outside of Holland Valley was going to be putting his cock in John’s mouth. Guess he was wrong.

“Aw, it’s true though. Pretty as a picture, you are.” His clumsy hand drops from John’s hair, coming to tap his dirty fingers against John’s cheek instead. John knows he must be flushed red from the effort. The gesture is painfully, worryingly intimate for the moment.

John bats the hand away, pulling back enough off Hurk’s cock to make another go at sinking as far as his mouth is going to let him. The length isn’t about to be the problem, but god, John has never stretched his jaw this wide, never forced his mouth into this sort of locked-open position. After tonight, he’s going to have to invest in some more substantial toys for practice, if this is what the men of Hope County are packing in their jeans.

Breathing in through his nose, John pushes back down, corners of his mouth nearly tearing, the thick shaft of Hurk’s cock rubbing against his uvula as it passes down his throat. Past the point of his gag reflex, threatening to kick in. Even though John knows, he knows he’s better at sucking dick than this, getting put out by six or so inches is embarrassing. God, hes so close to the finish line, just that last inch of length and he’s there. But his throat starts convulsing around Hurk’s cock, trying to cough and expel the intruder. Spit filling up his mouth and tears coming out of his eyes unbidden. Saliva drips down his beard, the remnants of it spotting the front of his button-down.

Hurk tries to jerk away, grabbing John’s hair again and pulling. John panics at first, his body screaming out to stop. If Hurk tries to force it, he’s going to rip John’s throat. But instead of trying to shove it in, Hurk hurries to pull John off. John’s so dizzy from the whiplash that he barely registers what Hurk is saying.

Dropping to his knees in front of John, Hurk cradles John’s face in both his hands, they’re warm. “Sorry, sorry, bro. Shit. I shouldn’t‘ve. Just, no one has ever tried and...you seemed to want to. But I’m sorry. My bad.”

John is still coughing, trying to clear his throat. He should push Hurk away, tell him that he’s not so delicate. Not a woman, Doesn’t have to be coddled like that. And John still intends to finish what he started. He’s going to fit this redneck’s dick down his throat so help him god (and he maybe, probably, is going to need that divine favor to survive).

But John glances between Hurk’s legs, and it’s obvious now that his erection has flagged. Still hanging out and looking menacingly large between Hurk’s thighs, but half-soft already. John laughs at the sight. Not because it’s funny, but because he’s certain that any other man up until this point who has deigned to let John suck their dick would go rock hard at the sight of him struggling to fit it all down. Watching him grope blindly for oxygen and coming up empty handed, panic in his eyes. They’d hold him there until his body went limp, watching as the fight drained out.

Hurk says sorry again, tucking himself back into his loose-fitting jeans. Standing up, he offers John a hand, saying that he promised to walk John to his room. “Dunno where you’re staying, you’ll have to lead the way.” There’s just enough light from the bulb over the back door of the bar that John can see that Hurk’s face has gone bright red. He doesn’t remember Hurk promising him anything.

“I can manage on my own,” John stumbles, fidgeting with his hair and bending over to grab the sunglasses knocked askew when Hurk first grabbed his hair. They look alright, a little scuffed but nothing that can’t be buffed away. John tosses them into the mostly empty dumpster next to them.

“No, no, no, absolutely not. I ain’t got much to offer, but I can be a gentleman, okay?”

John nods slowly, sure now that he won’t shake Hurk until he’s reached the guesthouse. He’s just so painfully earnest. Leading the way, John walks back around the bar’s facade and across the street, Hurk trotting along at his side, both hands shoved in the center pocket of his hoodie.

“Though, I guess I haven’t been very gentlemanly so far uh...I don’t even know your name…”

John pauses when they reach the guesthouse door, borrowed key held tight in his hand. Before he leaves tomorrow, he needs to return it to the old woman who runs the place. She’s probably already asleep in the attic loft above the two bedrooms that she rents. John is her only tenant for the night. Might have been her only guest for a good, long while.

John could say something filthy, entice Hurk back to his room, complete with musty floral comforter and ominous Hummel figurines on the dresser. Their perfect, round heads doubled in the slightly foggy mirror. His mouth may not have been up for the challenge earlier. But god, how that cock would feel sliding roughly into his ass, thick and full, to the point of splitting him fucking open. He can’t hide from a cock like that.

“It’s John...John Dun— Seed,” he says, turning away from Hurk and fitting the key into the lock.

Hurk thrusts out his hand for John to shake, smile bright and earnest across his almost-cherubic features. “Hercules Drubman Jr., er, but Hurk is fine. Everyone calls me Hurk...cept my dad since, you know, also Hurk, kinda gets confusing sometimes...I should probably stop talking about my dad...” John reaches for him out of habit, the handshake comically professional. Pulling his hand back, Hurk shoves it back into the pocket of his hoodie. 

John presses his spine against the door, his hand braced tightly against the loose knob. “Goodnight, Hurk,” John exhales.

“I’ll go once you’re through that door...just, wanna make sure you get in alright is all. My momma said to always wait until she’s safe inside when I take her home. Er, not that you’re a lady or nothin. Just figure...trying to figure out...never really thought about it before. Nothing weird, right?”

John repeats back, “Nothing weird.”

Very weird.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Your guess is as good as mine as to what the fuck I’m doing.

Jacob calls ahead, informing John that he, Joseph, and the vanguard of Joseph’s congregation, should be in Hope County by tomorrow afternoon. John flops down bonelessly onto the overstuffed, king-sized bed in his private room at the ranch, while he takes Jacob’s call.

“Everything should be in order,” John explains, laying on his back and staring up at the ceiling fan. The last few weeks, he’s been flying back and forth between Montana and Atlanta, trying to coordinate the real estate transactions necessary for his brother’s faithful to relocate with as little fuss as possible. The convoy left Georgia six days ago, and has been making slow, but steady progress ever since.

In addition to the ranch, he’s procured the abandoned Veterans Center in the northernmost corner of the county, and a stretch of barren, unwanted land on one of the larger islands in the lake. Joseph had asked him for a farm, a parcel of land large enough that they could grow their own crops, tend to livestock, and move towards self-sufficiency. But so far, John hasn’t had much luck getting any of the landowners with that much acreage to sell. The ranch will have to do for the time being. 

“Alright,” Jacob sighs on the other end of the line. 

John can make out the buzz of cheap fluorescent lights around Jacob’s head. Outside a motel room, maybe, the others tucked away in rented beds or sprawled across the truck beds and back seats of the vehicles they’ve used to make the journey. John isn’t disappointed that he skipped out on the pilgrimage. Flew into Bozeman, hopped a commuter plane to Missoula, then a charter to Hope. The ranch has a hanger of its own, and John already has his pilot’s license. All he needs now is to pick a plane.

“I think Joseph will like it…” John tries his best to keep his eldest brother from noticing the uncertainty in his voice. Jacob always coddles him, and maybe John likes the attention too much, relishes in the fond excuses Jacob makes for him. Selfishly, he wants the same from Joseph, but his approval is so much harder to earn.

Joseph is a man of god, like they were. He’ll always find John wanting for salvation, for purity he can’t achieve, having given himself away to sin too many times already. But, oh, John aches for his love.

“It’ll be fine,” Jacob huffs. “Joseph appreciates all you do.”

John’s not sure he does.

Knowing that Jacob has trouble sleeping, John lets his brother go, saying that he’ll see him in person, tomorrow afternoon. Jacob gruffly bids him goodbye, fat fingering his phone when he tries to hang up and instead ends up pressing the wrong icon on the screen. Smiling to himself, John tucks his phone against his chest once Jacob is gone, remembering when he bought that phone for his eldest brother, so woefully behind the curve by choice. At least they shared the experience of sitting down together, just the two of them, and John showing Jacob how to work calls and contacts and the camera. Even if Jacob has never once sent him a photo.

The ceiling fan rocks gently above his head, a little loose from the wooden beams. Needs to be tightened up or something. John tries googling ‘ceiling fan rocking back and forth’ and scrolls through the first couple of results, checks a video that would walk him through the troubleshooting steps to fix it himself. But the whole endeavor is for nothing because the ranch is still mostly empty. He doesn’t have a stepladder and he already knows he’s too short to reach the fixture. Maybe he can walk Jacob through helping him when he arrives. 

It’s late and John is antsy, bored, wanting for amusement. Things never go well when he’s like this, too much static through his nerves to let him sleep. A crackling feedback in his brain that drives him to do more, find some way to keep himself on a giddy high of activity and human attention. Talking to his brother was enough to get him going, now he needs something to satiate his terrible excitement.

Climbing out of bed, John heads down the open staircase to the ground level. It’s October now and the nights are cold, but he can’t remember where he left his jacket. The ranch is big, bigger than his apartment in Atlanta, bigger than his adopted parents’ mansion too. First thing John sold off once they died. Couldn’t stand the sight of it and the sharp uptick in housing prices made him a millionaire at seventeen, well before he gained access to their trust.

He doesn’t know where his coat is and he doesn’t care, giddily stepping out to the SUV he bought in Missoula, drove up through the mountains to reach Hope on his final trip back from Atlanta. 

Nothing in the county is open this time of night, the bars all closing up shop around midnight. There’s no destination for John to reach, just a dark, open road to coil his way along. He keeps the windows up to guard against the cold, though he hates the way the interior of the car smells like leather polish. Too familiar, too close.

Along his meandering route through the valley, he catches sight of the bright green and white glow of the gas station around the bend, a beacon in the desolate wilds (at least it feels that way to John. He knows that really, it’s all well-kept and managed farmland, as domesticated as any suburbia, just with less infrastructure and fewer prying eyes. But John likes to pretend this is some great adventure).

Though his tank is still half-full, he pulls in at the station. He goes through the motions of uncapping the tank, inserting the pump, tapping his fingers against the digital readout as the numbers climb. Gasoline is so cheap here, fewer taxes.

The pump clicks off and John puts the fuel cap back on, turning until it clicks closed. The convenience mart is open too, staffed by a teenage girl with dark hair and darker circles around her eyes. John can’t tell for sure that it’s kohl until he’s already inside, bell dinging above his head and the harsh white lights blasting down on him as he walks his way through the narrow aisles.

At first, the clerk’s gaze stays fixed on him, watching as this strange man she doesn’t know eyes the salted snacks. John’s not hungry, not even sure why he came inside, other than the vague comfort that comes with not being alone. But now that he’s here, he won’t leave without buying something. He’s already spooked the clerk, made himself look suspicious.

John doesn’t have that many memories of his brothers from their childhood. He was too small and already prone to hysterical bouts of emotion, blurring what images he can wrestle from that age. But John remembers a bit, from that first foster home, where the woman and man would make Jacob and Joseph work the farm until their hands were raw, bleeding through. Their knees caked with scabs and dirt and pus from infections that wouldn’t close. Joseph would vomit in the night, too sick to keep food down.

They were only just waiting for the little one to be a bit steadier on his feet, then he could work just as well as his older brothers. Such charity, for not leaving the little one behind at the orphanage. For taking responsibility for all three boys, so they could be together.

John stares at the salted peanuts, clear plastic packaging, red and green and white cardboard stapled across the top to keep everything inside. Cheap. 

Jake held him by the hand, walked with him from the barn to the roadside. The pavement was cracked through along the country road, yellow lines faded past recognition. They walked a long time, until John’s feet were sore. He had no shoes. Then Jake picked him up, calling him a baby with a fondness that seems so vivid that John suspects his mind invented it, patched it in from Jacob’s later affections. Because otherwise, how could Jake have been strong enough to smile? At the gas station down the road, Jake bought him a little bag of peanuts from the shop, sat him down on the curb outside, and told John to wait. He’d come back for John once they could leave.

The foster couple caught up to them, before Jacob could find anyone willing to drive John away.

John buys the nuts, and a bottle of water from the refrigerated section. The girl behind the counter says that he owes three forty-two and John tries not to flinch. He passes her a five dollar bill, eyeing the cigarettes behind her back. Jacob ‘quit’ when Joseph told him to. John could hide the pack in his car to give to Jake, but he’s not sure what brand he smokes, knowing about his vices only from the faint smell that lingers in his clothes.

The bell above the door rings as someone else comes in, two sets of feet in clumsy boots. 

The clerk groans, “You better not cause trouble,” before grabbing her gum between her teeth and clicking.

“Aw Sandy, you know Sharky didn’t mean nothing by it last time,” one of the new arrivals tries to soothe her concern.

John recognizes that voice, the rough, rural sweetness of it landing hard and sticky in the pit of his stomach. 

Should have known, should have known in a place as small as Hope, he’d meet Hurk again. Wasn’t a way to avoid it really. John just hadn’t expected for this encounter to come so soon, at such a late hour, when he’s already feeling particularly off-kilter, askew.

He turns to duck out of the convenience store, heading with heavy feet straight back to his SUV. His hands shake around the keys as he slots the right one into the ignition. The too-large engine roars to life, but John doesn’t pull away from the pump. 

In his side mirror, he can make out Hurk hurrying out of the convenience store, a shorter friend in a baseball cap and hooded sweatshirt following close on his heels. It’s hard to tell what they’re saying to each other, their voices muffled by distance and the glass.

John should go, he should drive. Now, now, now. Because he watches as the pair of locals avoid their pickup truck at the next pump over, heading for John like men on a mission instead.

Not now, he tries to pray. Another time, when he’s better kept, when the mask of indifference and professionalism is properly affixed across his face. 

“Heeey! Open up, John!” Hurk taps sharply at the window. 

Without thinking clearly, John rolls the window down, “Do I know you?” he asks, muscles tense, biting into the soft meatiness of his tongue to keep from slipping.

“Aw man,” Hurk sticks his hand behind his head, elbow pointing towards the sky and scratching at his scalp. His shirt rides up over the soft swell of his belly, belt buckle with a little American flag on it glinting in the harsh lighting. “Sorry. Hey, Sharky, do me a solid uh, go wait in the truck yeah?”

“But you said you were gonna introduce me to your fancy friend!” the smaller man bedside him, Sharky, barks. The cadence of their voices has enough similarity that John immediately recognizes them as kin. Sharky is a little brother, maybe?

“Another time, promise, man. Just, give us a second mano-a-mano okay?”

“Aw man,” Sharky huffs, grabbing the plastic bag full of chips and candy that Hurk holds in his off-hand and stalking back towards their truck.

Hurk smiles at John sheepishly, “Sorry, sorry bro. Ah, I wasn’t gonna say nothin about what we did. Swear it. Just, wanted to introduce you proper to my cousin,” Hurk shakes his head. “I know it’s you. Knew it was you from outside the shop, through that big glass door. Framing you like the prettiest picture.”

John turns away from the open car window, staring out the windshield instead. His hands are still locked tight around the wheel, engine humming under the pleasant wonder in Hurk’s voice.

“What is it that you want?” John asks, biting his nails into the leather, feeling it start to split. He’s only owned this car for a week.

“Nothin I guess, wanted to say hi, see if you were okay. The last time we saw each other...uh, never mind. Hey! We could uh, grab a beer, if you want. I said I won’t say nothin and I mean it. Sharky doesn’t know,” his voice gets quiet, bashful at the end.

John forces a smile, shows his teeth, tries to coax out the sinful viciousness he is certain lies within the hearts of all men, even this one. “Is that what you want, really? Or is it that you want me on my knees again?”

“Naw,” Hurk shakes his head, unphased, “I already pulled one out earlier and uh, at my age there’s only so many times a day….I just really meant it though. Sharky’s parents’ cabin is just up that hill,” Hurk points in some vague direction in the darkness, as if that means anything to John. “We just came down for some snacks.”

John has to say no. He wants to say yes. Because Hurk’s cheeks are pinked from the cold night air, light eyes begging John to concede. But John’s brothers will be here tomorrow. Before too long, everyone in the county will know who they are. Despite Joseph’s insistence on discretion in preparing for their arrival, there’s no way that their presence will go unnoticed.

“I can’t,” John admits, screwing his eyes shut, “I can’t.”

He can devise some other set of circumstances where they might see each other again, preferably with less clothes and fewer inhibitions. But John can’t partake in something so mundane, so horrifyingly domestic, as drinking beers with this man’s cousin. They can’t share in conversation; they can’t be friends. John doesn’t do friends with benefits. Enemies maybe. But not friends.

“I have to go home,” John says, putting the SUV into drive.

Hurk takes a step back to get out of the way of the wheels, his thin lips curved downward. “Sure, yeah, uh, it’s late and I bet, an important man like yourself has, uh, better things to do!” There’s not a trace of malice in his voice, just a plush, rolling disappointment. Hurk gives John a gentle wave as he pulls away from the pump, before shuffling back over to his truck.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don’t @ me I know this is weird as hell. But I’m enjoying writing it.

John realizes his mistake, not a quarter mile down the road from the jewel-lit gas station. In a moment of arresting clarity, he sees the possibility he’s passed up on. And why? For his brothers? Still a hundred miles away? They won’t know. John has tried to be good for them, to win their approval. But Jacob will love him no matter what, some sort of penance for his own failures as an older brother. And Joseph, equally, will always look at him with pity, what a broken, wretched child. But John is useful, in his way. 

So who is he to deny himself what he wants?

Pulling to the side of the road, John cuts the engine to his suv. He presses his forehead against the center of the steering wheel, fingers knotted tightly around the rim. The horn beeps sharply when his forehead hits it, and John bursts into giddy laughter.

Who is he? He’s not even sure anymore. He wore the mask of John Duncan for years and years. A perfectly wretched little boy. A monster with a pretty face. But “John Seed” doesn’t feel any more authentic. At least not like this. His memories of his brothers are so faint, receding in the distance, as to be useless to John. They both treat him like a mailable phantom, some projection of a child that they lost, rather than a person with his own accomplishments, a life they barged in on, however disgraceful it was. Now, he plays the good little brother in Joseph’s schemes. Plays the defenseless child to give Jacob someone to protect. 

But John can feel himself slipping under the tow of his gnarled, terrible desires. Coming to Montana was supposed to make things easier. Here, he would be far away from temptation. 

That clearly hasn’t worked.

Because John turns the suv back on, sharply swerving to head back in the direction from which he just came. There are no directions to follow, just the vague gesture that Hurk made towards the hillside in the distance. There can’t be that many cabins tucked into the wooded slope, and John is fairly sure he can recognize Hurk’s truck in the driveway. 

He passes the gas station and takes the route that will lead him back towards the cousin’s cabin. At least, John thinks he’s headed in the right direction. There are street lamps dotted along the road, not close enough together to really illuminate the street, but enough that he doesn't veer off into the brush by accident.

It’s obvious that he won’t be able to see any car or truck from the road, and he’ll have to take the driveway closer up to the cabin to get an idea if it’s the right one. 

Joseph left him with very specific instructions not to draw too much attention to himself. Joseph has a plan, and while it involves John’s very particular social expertise, he wants to be able to guide his younger brother, point him in the right direction, soothe the harsh edges he developed in boardrooms and back alleys, unsuitable for this quiet mountain town.

So John is cautious, cutting his headlights and relying on the daytime runners to creep up the driveway towards the cabin. The lights are on and he can make out movement behind the gauzy curtains. Someone jumps up from the couch, throwing their arms above their head. Whoever it may be is too slender for Hurk, but could easily be his cousin, who is narrower in the shoulders and slimmer through his hips.

Exhaling when he sees the truck, John flicks the headlights back on, hoping he doesn’t startle Hurk and Sharky. There’s enough space next to Hurk’s truck to park, and he takes one last steadying breath before climbing out of the car.

He doesn’t quite reach the door before Hurk throws it open, beaming bright in the frame, “You came, bro! That’s great.” Behind him, Sharky comes up on the balls of his feet to try and get a look over his cousin’s shoulder.

John flashes them both the brightest smile he can manage, slipping into the familiar song and dance of easy, poised confidence. It’s a smoother role to take, now that he’s had time to prepare, find his footing. He knows all his lines and blocking, each gesture and how it translates.

Hurk motions for him to come inside, telling John to head for the kitchen on the right for a beer, uh they might have wine too, if John prefers. They’re playing Mario Kart on Sharky’s wii. They’ve only got two of the wheels but Hurk will play with the remote if John wants? 

In the kitchen, Hurk ends up bent over, fishing through the fridge to get John one of those beers. John can see straight down the back of Hurk’s too-loose jeans and bright blue boxers, but doesn’t say anything about it. 

Hurk pops opens a beer for him while Sharky still hovers around, blabbering about how Hurk is really shit with the remote and it’s better if they just take turns. John reaches out to take the can from Hurk’s hand and their fingers brush together, slightly damp from the condensation clinging to the can. If Hurk feels anything at the contact, he doesn’t show it, just barking at Sharky that John is their guest and should get the wheel because you’re supposed to be nice to guests.

John doesn’t really care either way. It’s not like he’s actually played Mario Kart, wheel or not. He does...did have a console, an Xbox back in Atlanta that he’d play shooters on sometimes, let out some of the aggression he couldn't risk showing in front of other people. But he’s left it behind, along with everything else. Joseph said he wouldn’t need it.

Sharky flops down on one end of the couch, his beer safely on the end table. Hurk starts to take what must be his normal position at the other end, then thinks twice, scooting closer to his cousin to let John fit in on the other side.

The couch isn’t quite big enough for three, really more of a loveseat than a proper sofa. The living room isn’t large enough for more. Hurk hands over the wheel and takes the remote for himself, staring up at John and waiting for him to squeeze in.

John wonders if Sharky notices, when he almost-sits on Hurk’s lap, John’s left hip stacked just on top of Hurk’s right, their legs pressed tight together, John leaning back into Hurk’s shoulder.

Hard to tell if Hurk notices that they’re closer than they should be, because he doesn’t really react to John’s proximity.

It takes a couple of rounds for John to get the hang of the controls. But he finds the wheel to be more trouble than it’s worth. When the fourth race starts, John having beat the AI just fine, but coming up in third behind the other human players, he asks Hurk to switch controls with him. Hurk babbles again that he’s good, that John is a guest, but after John insists, he finally relents.

John does better with the remote, somehow that feels more natural to him, more responsive to his whims. He still comes in third but now he’s confident that he can overtake the other two with a few more practice rounds.

Between the fourth and fifth races, Sharky hops up to get more beers. Gets an eyeful of how Hurk and John are seated but doesn’t say anything. John can’t tell if he’s unbothered or just dense. Probably the latter, but that’s just a guess. He can’t imagine that he wouldn’t comment on John being practically in Hurk’s lap.

Once Sharky leaves the room, Hurk curls his arm over John’s shoulder, puts his mouth to John’s ear, whispering low, and tells him he looks really nice tonight. Pretty, like the last time. He hopes he’s not overstepping here, but he’s glad that John decided to come over. 

John shifts his hips, resting more of his weight on Hurk’s lap, the heat of his soft chest warming up the left side of John’s body. And god, the things that he would do if Sharky weren’t clattering around in the kitchen, apparently knocking through every bottle and jar in the fridge on his way to the beer.

When they both hear Sharky’s footsteps returning from the beer run, Hurk moves his arm off John’s shoulders and puts both hands on the wheel. There’s no subtle way for John to shift back into position, so he just stays there with his leg thrown over Hurk’s, resting the weight of it against the top of Hurk’s thick thigh.

Sharky still doesn’t say anything and on the sixth race, John finally wins. And okay, he’s maybe so excited about figuring it out that he hops up, pointing at Hurk and telling him that he knew he could do it. Hurk just smiles at him, big and bright and so sincere that it makes John ache to watch. Sharky hangs his head, muttering that he thought this was something he was finally good at. 

When John settles back into his seat, he doesn’t miss how Hurk brushes his hand over his thigh, almost dipping into the space between John’s legs. It’s not subtle, but Sharky is absorbed in picking his character for the next race. John quickly squeezes his legs together around Hurk’s hand, watching out of the corner of his eye how Hurk’s mouth falls open in response.

By the tenth race it’s late enough that Sharky is asleep at the wheel, quite literally, the wii controller falling out of his hand and clattering to the floor. Hurk leans over to pick it up, placing it on the end table where it won’t get stepped on.

“Um,” Hurk grabs the controller from John too, pushing him gently off his lap so that he can put the second wheel and the remote next to the tv. Without Hurk to bracket him, Sharky starts to slip off the couch and jolts awake. So much for that. “You can stay over, there’s plenty of room,” Hurk tells John.

John shakes his head, saying no, that’s okay. He didn’t have that much to drink. He can drive himself home just fine. 

With Sharky here, their chance at privacy is near zero. Next to him on the couch, Sharky stretches his hands above his head, telling John the sofa is plenty comfortable, but he’s going to his room.

Hurk calls after his cousin, telling him he’ll be back in a second. Sheepishly, Hurk tells John they usually share a bed, have since Sharky was a little kid. Says that he’s always liked Sharky a lot. Doesn’t have any siblings of his own and he always wanted a little brother. A little sister would have been good too. But just someone who looked up to him. So after Sharky was born he took it upon himself to look after him. Closest he was gonna get to a sibling.

John says he should go, some platitude about his brothers caught behind his lips. But Hurk doesn’t know yet that he has brothers. Doesn’t know much about him at all. Before he goes, he helps Hurk gather up the empty cans strewn around the living room. Hurk’s strangely fastidious, rinsing each one of them with a little water before putting them in the bin for recycling.

“Walk you out to your car, then,” Hurk says. He’s been stalling, maybe waiting for Sharky to fall asleep.

Hurk shows John out, trotting along while John walks around to the driver’s side of his car. Instead of opening the front door, John clicks the keys twice to unlock the rear. He smiles back at Hurk and gets into the backseat, assuming Hurk will know to follow after.

Luckily, Hurk isn’t quite as dense as his cousin, climbing in and shutting the door behind him. The backseat is spacious, but there’s still not quite enough room to lay down easily. Doesn’t matter though, John will work with what he’s got.

John tries to crawl into Hurk’s lap, leaving one foot on the floor and curling the other one tight up against the backrest, dipping his head so it doesn’t hit the ceiling. Hurk leans back against the door, his big hands coming to steady John at his hips. But when John leans down to kiss him, Hurk turns his head away.

Oh. Alright. That’s fine. John can work with that.

He only thought.

After the last time.

How sweet Hurk is.

It might have been something he enjoyed.

But it’s easier this way, this is what John’s used to. And John slips out of Hurk’s lap to kneel on the floor. The fit is tight, John’s back pressed flat against the center console, digging into his spine as he pulls at Hurk’s pants, trying to get him to put one leg on either side of him, keep John pinned in, nowhere to run.

“Wait, wait,” Hurk pants, trying to pull at John’s shirt, not to take it off, but to get him off the floor, “none of that uh, come on, sit next to me, yeah? Okay?” There’s an uneasy tremor in Hurk’s voice.

It’s a production trying to get John back up on the seat. Hurk has to drag his leg at an uncomfortable angle not to kick John in the face. And once he gets it up, he pulls a muscle, hissing “ow, ow, ow” while John tries to find enough leverage to get up from between the front and rear seats. This already ranks up there with the most unintentionally embarrassing sexual encounters of John’s life. And he gets off on being humiliated, usually. But this is about as non-sexual as it gets.

Once Hurk’s leg muscle relaxes and the cursing stops, John waits for him to speak first. Easier to assess, to make the right move, when John has something to work with. Because right now, every signal Hurk is giving off seems to be going in opposite directions.

“I’m bad at this,” Hurk huffs, “my daddy always said I was.” Tilting his head back, Hurk looks up at the roof of the car, rather than over at John in the seat next to him. 

John tucks one leg under his ass, raising his height just a little off the seat. A bad habit from childhood he couldn’t really break. Too many other things to beat out of a boy, and not sitting properly was one transgression that just kept slipping in.

“I just wanted to….treat you alright. And I messed up,” Hurk sighs, finally turning to look at John. “Walk you to the car and send you off with a kiss or something. It seemed real nice when I thought about it….but….”

John narrows his eyes in the low light of the back of the suv. Somehow, inexplicably, Hurk thinks he’s the one who is moving too fast, when all John wants is the comfort that comes with skipping to the sex. None of these idle touches on the couch, soft brushes between fingers, heightened tension and unnecessary delays. John doesn’t get the appeal (he swears). Doesn’t know how the soft moments in between are supposed to work (he doesn’t). 

“I want you to have me,” John says plainly, “that’s why I came here. So you could fuck me. If you wanted, make me suck you off again.”

Hurk goes a little wide-eyed, sputtering around his words, “Listen, uhh, I know I didn’t treat you real nice the last time. And I’m sorry, that ain’t me, okay. I thought, I thought maybe if we spent more time together uh...I don’t know how to do this with a man,” (John can show him). “How to treat you right.”

And John realizes that’s something he doesn’t know either.


	4. The moment that you realize you should have been titling your chapters all along, volume 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can I just uhhhh thank all of you for coming on this ridiculous journey with me? Honestly getting so many nice comments on the last chapter of this sort of blew my damn mind..

Joseph’s convoy arrives at the ranch in the early afternoon. The middle Seed brother climbs out of the passenger side of the lead truck, John stepping down off the porch to greet him. The thin cotton of Joseph’s shirt pulls tight across his chest when he spreads his arms in welcome, waiting for an embrace. Benign physical affection still doesn’t come easily to John, and he’s not so certain how Joseph has learned to be so open, so at ease. Then again, there are many things about his brothers that John still doesn’t know.

But he’ll accept the embrace from Joseph, even if his own posture is stilted, unsure about how they are supposed to fit together. Joseph is three inches taller, his shoulders broader, even though his waist is small, on the verge of emaciated, and John reaches up to embrace him around the shoulders, not sure otherwise how to place his hands.

After a firm pat on the back, Joseph lets him go. Only then does John see his eldest brother shuffling from the driver’s side of the truck and making his way over to greet John as well. Jacob doesn’t try to hug him, instead nodding his head in John’s direction, thin, pink lips drawn tight together, framed by the dense red hair of his beard.

Jacob isn’t sweet, isn’t tender. John knows his brother at least that well. But the memories that John carries tell a different narrative. Not a contradiction, but a layering, of how the boy who bundled John into his arms, shielding him from the burning barn as his own skin reduced to stinking ash, could be the same child who first set the blaze.

Jacob was both the arsonist and John’s savior on that day. 

John smiles at them both, ready to play the good host. After all, they have left the matter of obtaining properties in Hope County almost entirely to him. While he knows that he has done the best he can manage on short notice, he still wants to be certain that Joseph approves.

Later tonight or tomorrow, they will have to drive out to the island, and then further north to the Veterans Center. John still has offers in for a few more plots of land that fit Joseph’s requests, but at the moment, they will have to make due with the three he has already secured. Unfortunately, most of what John was able to acquire isn’t cropland, farmers unwilling to part from their livelihood while they still had money invested in the soil. 

But despite his failures, he can at least give his brothers a tour of the ranch, starting with the sprawling lodge: six bedrooms on the second floor, the large, central room for entertaining on the first, a nicely renovated kitchen, and the neatly tended lot complete with greenhouses in the back. The previous owners took good care of the property, and were hesitant to part with it, but John managed to convince them that the upkeep would run them ragged with their increasing age.

He shows them to the hanger next, trying to conceal his excitement regarding his potential purchase of a plane. John has been researching options in what little spare time he has. The hanger isn’t large enough for some of the heftier models he’s admired for the last few years. But he has his eye on a AdjudiCor now. There’s a seller in Fergus County who is offering one well within John’s price range, even taking into consideration the real estate that Joseph still expects him to move. He doesn’t tell Joseph about the plane, simply stating that they could purchase one, if they saw the need. After all, the ranch has one of the few runways in the county, they may as well take advantage.

Joseph hums thoughtfully, neither telling John no nor yes. John resolves to call the seller as soon as Joseph is settled in to arrange for transfer of the title into John’s name.

With the tour completed, Joseph gestures to the parishioners who have made the journey with him from Rome to follow inside the building. While John has set aside one of the bedrooms for himself, he has made sure that the others are also furnished. Joseph may decide to settle the majority of his followers at one of the other properties, but for the time being, the ranch is the best equipped to handle their basic needs. The Veterans Center will need significant renovations before it is habitable, and while there are water, electric, and gas hookups to the island, much of the infrastructure will still need to be contracted before they can build homes. 

Jacob barks at the church members, corralling them into groups and assigning them to bedrooms. He stands just behind Joseph, who does little more than clasp his hands behind his back and watch as his faithful carry their meager belongings off to their temporary quarters. Undoubtedly, some of them will remain at the ranch, but the choice of who will be left to Joseph.

Once the parishioners are taken care of, Joseph asks John what tasks he still has to complete?

In his pocket, John’s phone buzzes, loud enough that his brothers can hear he has received a message. Joseph casts his eyes down to where the phone lights up, the screen illuminating the front of John’s jeans. John only pulls his phone out far enough to see the message is from “Hurk,” and simply plays it off as communications with one of the real estate agents he’s been working with. 

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Joseph says, laying a heavy hand on John’s shoulder and squeezing tight.

John slips back outside, getting into his suv and swerving around the trucks and station wagons that Joseph’s flock have left parked haphazardly across the drive. Truthfully, he doesn’t have another meeting today, having kept his schedule clear for his brothers’ arrival. But Joseph has made it clear enough that his presence isn’t required at the moment. He and Jacob can see to organizing the parishioners without John hovering around. 

He drives a half mile down from the ranch before stopping, pulling off to the side of the road to check his phone.

After his embarrassingly aborted attempt to lure Hurk into bed (really the backseat of the car), they had exchanged numbers. John hadn’t thought it would be a problem; Joseph wants to be on good terms with the locals. And, one of the very few things John knows about Hurk (other than the ridiculous girth of his dick, and that he’s more bi-curious than he perhaps ever considered) is that his father is a prominent in the area and a small-time local politician. Hurk Sr. is on the county board right now, but clearly has his eyes on bigger offices with better views. Being on good terms with Hurk Jr. is conducive to Joseph’s plans (even if trying to fit his cock into John’s ass maybe isn’t).

_hey john its me hurk_

John can’t help but grin down at his phone. As of it could be a message from anyone else. Before John left Sharky’s cabin last night, Hurk passed John his phone, an older model slider with an honest to god keyboard with tiny chiclets for buttons, to program his number in. Every key made a satisfying click, but John wondered how Hurk managed to type with his thicker fingers. In turn, John handed over his iPhone, telling Hurk to add his contact information, and Hurk cursed his way through the process, citing the lack of feedback on John’s touch screen as an impediment.

 _Hi Hurk._ John texts back.

Though it’s been ten minutes since Hurk’s first message, John waits to see if he’ll reply. And sure enough, not sixty seconds later, John’s phone buzzes in his hand.

_are you busy_

_Not right now_

A long pause. John doesn’t think much of it, Hurk isn’t particularly fast typing on the phone, and the keyboard is slower to respond than a touch screen.

_could i take you to dinner_

Oh.

Well, probably not. At least not today. While Joseph was more than happy to get John out of the way at the moment, he’s almost certainly expecting to see him again this evening. 

_I already have plans,_ John skirts this issue of his brothers. Hurk is sure to find out soon enough, along with the other residents of Hope County, but John isn’t accustomed to divulging his personal business to his (potential) conquests (because he can’t rightly check Hurk off the list yet. That’s why his infatuation hasn’t lifted). 

_okay some other time maybe???_ So he found the question mark key after all.

John catches himself smiling at the phone again, quickly typing back, _Where are you right now? Alone?_

Another couple minutes for Hurk to respond, _yeah im at my daddys ranch up in the whitetails hes in helena for the week_

It would take John almost an hour to reach “Fort Drubman,” then an hour to get back. That wouldn’t leave much time for them to meet before his brothers would expect him at the ranch, but enough time to scratch an itch. And he has nowhere else he needs to be before this evening.

 _See you soon._ John replies. He doesn’t wait for Hurk’s response before heading off towards the Whitetails. 

\--

That’s how John finds himself walking up to the Drubman porch, trying to fiddle with his phone as he approaches to feign disinterest. As if he didn’t just drive an hour to arrive at Hurk’s welcome mat.

Hurk bursts through the door to greet him, the screen snapping back into place with a loud crack when the groom fails to slow its momentum. He looks freshly showered, his beard trimmed and cleaned up around the edges since last night. And the shirt he’s wearing has buttons, though it’s still far from anything that would be considered formal. Gray, with a small checkered print, he looks good in it, even if the fabric pulls a bit across his shoulders and his stomach.

“Hey,” John greets him with a smile, shoving his phone back into his front pocket.

“Sorry, I mean, I’m sorry if the place isn’t too neat. My daddy left a few days ago and well, I’m not so contentious about picking up after myself when he’s not around,” Hurk babbles, running his fingers nervously through still-wet hair. Without the bandana on, some of it flops down onto his forehead.

John takes the two steps up from the driveway and onto the porch, crowding into Hurk’s personal space with a push. Hurk gives in immediately, backing up until he smashes into the wall behind him.

“Don’t care…” John murmurs, pressing his chest tightly against Hurk’s, sliding one hand down his side. Hurk squirms at the contact. Ticklish, maybe.

“Uhhh,” Hurk shakes his head, “I’m maybe catching on to this a little better,” Hurk stresses ‘little,’ and truthfully, there’s still uncertainty in his voice. “And I do want to kiss you and all. But maybe, maybe I’m just looking for the right moment, you know? Kept thinking about it since last night, and uh—“

John comes up onto his toes, pressing his lips to Hurk’s to keep back the excuses. And at least this time Hurk doesn’t turn his head away. Wrapping his hand around the back of Hurk’s neck, John tries to coax him down a little, because even on the balls of his feet, it’s a bit of a stretch to reach Hurk’s waiting mouth.

Hurk’s no good at kissing. Not really. He’s too much spit and gums. Too soft and wet. His mouth open too wide around John’s lips. But it doesn’t even matter, because he wraps his arms around John’s waist, folding him in as close as they can meet. Like they might be able to melt together through the wall and fall into the front room of the house.Hurk’s sturdy body a heated barrier against the encroaching cool of autumn.

John realizes he forgot his coat again.

Hurk opens his hand against the small of John’s back, almost squeezing them in place as John pulls back from the kiss. Won’t let John get away. Hurk’s pale eyes are open wide, pupils blown already. God, his cheeks get so pink.

The silence between them isn’t comfortable, but it’s not very long either. Hurk still has his arms wrapped around John’s hips and he lifts just enough to pick John’s feet a couple of inches up off the ground. John is so shocked at first that he can do little else but stay still and silent while Hurk lifts him, pressing his face into John’s neck and letting his beard tickle against John’s skin. Just as sudden as the surprise of it, the moment it over, Hurk putting John back down.

It’s not as if it’s unreasonable that Hurk should be able to support John’s weight. But the ease with which Hurk lifted him sends shivers down John’s spine. The things that Hurk might be able to do with that strength, things that John has yet to discover.

“Uh, come on, let’s go inside,” Hurk says, bashful now. He grabs ahold of John’s hand, dragging him back into the house. The screen door slams again.

For all of Hurk’s apologies for having not neatened up enough, the house looks clean. Not immaculate, no, but lived in. There’s unopened mail on the table next to the door; as they pass the dining room, John catches that there’s a chair pulled out, a newspaper strewn across the table. Hurk takes him to the living room, adorned with leather couches and a reclining easy chair, a big flat panel television against one wall, the others lined with hunting trophies. When John looks up above the window, he’s greeted by a complete taxidermied fox placed high on a wooden shelf. 

“I dunno how long you can stay,” Hurk says. Idly, he picks up two remotes, using one to turn the television on and the second for the set-top box. The Netflix logo brightens as the television comes on and John nearly laughs at the fact that he’s put himself in this situation. 

He lets Hurk set something to run in the background, for the sake of appearances, before shoving him back towards the couch. Hurk drops one of the remotes, cursing when it crashes into his foot, the cover to the battery compartment snapping loose and skidding under the couch. John tells him to leave it.

With Hurk spread out on the center of the leather sofa, John swings his legs on either side, straddling Hurk’s hips and stomach, drawing their mouths together for a second time. Hurk is slower now, more deliberate. Like the nerves are finally draining out of him, pooling around their feet, and he’s realizing that kissing is something that he should know how to do. Not so different than with a woman.

But John came here with a purpose, this idea to get Hurk to finally, finally, give him that cock he’s been thinking about since September. And somehow, John can’t help but think he’s moving backwards, even though he’s got his hands tangled in Hurk’s shower-damp hair and Hurk’s calloused hands slipping under the hem of his shirt, skirting against his abdomen.

“Oh Jesus,” Hurk tips his head back against the couch, leather squeaking as their weights shift. “You’re, uh, really cut...aren’t you? Gosh…”

John can’t help but smile, reaching around to grab the collar of his polo and pull it up and over his head so that Hurk can get a better look at his chest and abs. He makes a show of sitting back on Hurk’s thighs, reaching his hands above his head and hollowing out his stomach so that he makes the most of where his muscles are lightly defined. When he’s not flexing, the effort he puts into his physique isn’t quite so obvious.

Hurk’s hands drift to the center of John’s chest, palms running down to the flat of his stomach and back around to his sides, before finally settling in the small of John’s back again, tugging John forward a bit so they’re chest to chest again. 

“Like what you see?” John teases, but he does really want to hear Hurk’s response, to coax out the praise he so desires.

“I like the ink a lot,” Hurk comments, inching John back just enough that he can run his fingers over John’s pectoral, just over the outline of a dove. “You, uh, know that I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, right?” Hurk laughs into John’s neck, shaking his head and scratching his beard against John’s clavicle. John can’t help but reach up and touch his hair again. As it dries, it starts getting fluffy, soft. “I mean, I’m not...well maybe I am stupid. Never could rightly tell...but...I know you’re trying to…like that night at the Spread Eagle right? You seem to want to have sex with me for some reason.”

John hums, dropping his arms around Hurk’s shoulders again, “Something like that,” he grinds his hips into Hurk’s, eliciting a little puffed gasp, Hurk’s breath warm against his chest as he dips his head to press his forehead against John’s sternum.

“And I wanna. I think I wanna. I’m not….totally sure. Aw hell…” Hurk curses.

“You don’t know if you’d want to fuck a man?” John supplies. “Don’t worry about that,” he soothes, falling into a familiar script. One he’s read from plenty of times before. “This doesn’t have to make you queer…You can pretend...”

“Mmm,” Hurk hums, “no that’s not it. I don’t want you thinking I’m bigoted or nothing. I’m not. It’s just...I told you,” he moves his hands from John’s back, rubbing them up and down his bare arms instead, trying to fit his fingers around John’s bicep, testing out how big it is, then down below his elbow, over the center of the goat tattooed into his arm. Finally, his grips around John’s thin wrist. John has been thinking about tattooing his hands next, now that he won’t be returning to the firm. 

Hurk continues, “I want to be good to you. ‘S why I asked you out to dinner. Figured I could make a start of it.” He takes both of John’s wrists in his hands and puts his palms back on his shoulders. “So not today, maybe, cause you’re busy. But let me take you to dinner. Okay?”

Okay, so maybe Hurk is about to be the death of him, and not just because of the size of his dick. 

John agrees, “Yes.”

—

John doesn’t get back to the ranch until almost seven. He expects Joseph to scold him for his tardiness, Jacob frowning at his side. But instead, his brothers are nowhere to be seen. Neither are the members of the church. About half the cars are gone, and the ranch stands dark, empty, quiet.

John’s heart thuds loudly in his chest. 

Have his brothers left him? 

Again? 

What did he do this time to be sent away? 

Panic tightens in his airways, compelling him to move quickly, before he breaks.

He runs up to the house, fitting his key inside the lock and rushing inside. He can barely see in the dark, through the clouding in his vision and the pounding in his head. The living room is vacant. The appliances in the kitchen quietly humming through the silence of the lodge.

No, no, no. 

He shudders. He’d tried his best to be good. How could he have failed already? He never deserved this second chance. But he’d thought...at least...they might…He’s willing to beg for forgiveness again.

The glass door at the back of the lodge slides open, metal track rubbing against the rubber stopper. Footsteps quicken to meet him, the smell of cigarettes blotting out the faint lemony scent of wood polish left behind by the cleaners who prepped the property for sale.

“Hey,” Jacob whispers, “you’re alright.” A hand comes to rest on John’s curved spine.

Only then does John realize that he’s crouched down on the floor. His ears covered with his hands and eyes screwed shut. He looks up, into Jacob’s eyes, bright and clear, a perfect mirror of his own. They all have their father’s eyes. At least, that’s what Joseph told him. John can’t remember his eyes at all. He only remembers his belt from the latticework scars, woven in with those the Duncans gifted him throughout adolescence.

Jacob sits cross-legged on the floor with him, until John’s muscles loosen enough that he can finally move. John doesn’t get up from the floor, his whole being already exhausted. So he just sits on the hardwood while his brother explains that half of Joseph’s flock sleeps upstairs. The other half left with Joseph to pick up shipments delivered to Fall’s End.

They head outside together so Jacob can burn through a second cigarette before Joseph returns. Before they head back into the lodge, John sprays Jacob down with febreze he finds in the laundry room. They both laugh about it. As if they can hide what they’ve been up to.


	5. Wind enough threads together to sew yourself a lifeline

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple of quick notes about setting, as I ground myself better.
> 
> This takes place in 2013, so between FC3 and FC4. Hurk has been to Rook but not Kyrat.
> 
> The Faith Seed I’m using is “Original Faith.” Rachel Jessop might appear later though!

It’s not love.

John has to remind himself, it’s not. Not that it’s not love now. Because that much is obvious. He and Hurk have met three times now: behind the Spread Eagle, Sharky Boshaw’s cabin, and the overstuffed leather couch at Fort Drubman.

Tonight will be their fourth encounter.

But it will never be love, and John has to remind himself of that. Because it’s easy, so easy to get swept up in simple motions and lovely, untrue words. John knows that he is weak. He’s fallen into this trap before, at fifteen, eighteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-three….he’s twenty-seven now and old enough to know better. 

Men like Hurk will never love him, even if they might behave in a manner that suggests more complicated affections then just finding a hole to stuff their cock. No one will ever love him. Not the tattered ruin he manages to keep erect on an unstable foundation, no matter how shiny the facade. 

Hurk has invited him to the Grand View for dinner. Probably the fanciest place to get a meal in the county. The lodge mostly caters to tourists who are already inclined to book the most expensive room for miles around. So while John doubts that the dining room will be quite as formal as his old haunts in Atlanta, Hurk clearly has every intention to impress.

After all, Hurk said that he wants to treat John well….

And even if this can never be love, John is going to take Hurk at his word, at least for the time being. This is new for both of them, and Hurk clearly has a playbook regarding courtship, even if he’s constantly crossing out the names that came before and trying to diagram in how John being a man fits into the strategy.

So, dinner at the Grand View it is.

Jacob comes to John’s bedroom door as he’s getting ready, buttoning his shirt cuffs, then unbuttoning to roll the sleeves up. A cold snap has hit the valley, but Hurk seems rather enamored with John’s tattoos. 

Watching from the open door frame, Jacob crosses his arms over his chest. John can just see him in the corner of the full-length mirror, looming, his lips downturned. 

“If you’re going to ask, just ask it,” John throws up his hands. He still doesn’t like how his hair is falling to one side when he tries to comb it back. But he doesn’t want to put more product in, in the hopes that Hurk might be messing it up in any case. If Hurk has any sense at all, he’s booked one of the rooms at the hotel to go along with dinner. If not, they can always pay for it on the spot. 

Jacob shifts his weight, from one foot to the other. Taking a step inside the room, he closes the door behind him and props himself up against the wall. “You have a date,” Jacob points out the obvious.

“I’m allowed to date,” John mumbles, fiddling with the second button on his navy dress shirt. He’s already made the decision to leave the top one undone. The color of the shirt makes his eyes look brighter. 

Actually, he’s not….certain he’s allowed to date. Joseph preaches moderation to his followers, that they are to control themselves to seek a higher pleasure. And it was Joseph who urged him to stop giving himself away so freely (though Joseph never wanted details, and never made specific what he thought fell into John’s particular repertoire of sins). 

Jacob hums what sounds like an affirmative, uncrossing his arms and moving to stand next to John in the mirror. 

For all the physical gifts that god bestowed upon John, he cannot help but be a bit jealous of his brother. Tall and broad, with a commanding presence, and a voice that demands authority (even if Jacob likes to pretend as if he is quiet, stoic, he is just as inclined to wax poetic as his brothers). Jacob’s particular, unassailable masculinity has its advantages. And John wonders if he were bigger, stronger, if he could have fought back, like Jacob did. If he had the weight and build when he was fifteen (instead of never), if he would have taken his adopted father to the floor, bashed his face in with his fists, instead of letting himself be led down to the basement, instead of offering up his flesh for the thousandth futile punishment, a castigation that only welded the mask more firmly to his features. 

If he were like Jacob, survival would have looked different on his face.

But he’s not. He’s 5’9” and slender instead of six-foot-god-knows-what, with a physique to wrestle a bear and come out the other side (there John goes, hyperbole again, but it seems fitting, at least when it comes to Jacob).

“Who are they?” Jacob asks. He stands in the mirror, the top of his head cut off of the reflection. 

John’s voice drops into a whisper, “Are you going to tell Joseph?”

Jacob snickers, “Joe doesn’t care. You think he does, but he doesn’t. He’s on a more important ‘mission’ here.”

Turning away from the mirror, John grabs his wallet and his phone off of the dresser. He hasn’t bothered to wear dress slacks, worried that they would be a touch too formal. Even though the sun has already set, he pulls a pair of sunglasses from the top drawer where he keeps them out of sight. “Did you read the dossiers I sent you?” John asks.

Jacob hums again. John only handed over the files last night, but it’s unsurprising that Jacob would have read through them already. Maybe while the others slept. John provided him with carefully curated profiles of many of the major players in the county. The Sheriff, the county board members, prominent local business people, a primer on who they need to know in order to secure privacy and trust among the locals. 

“...he’s Hercules Drubman’s son,” John admits, taking his watch out from the same drawer. He’d sold the others to help finance the move. There is plenty of money still left over. But he couldn’t….Joseph is trying to teach him moderation. 

“He’s forty-one,” Jacob says, barely any intonation in his response. So he did read the file.

John can’t help but snicker. He doesn’t mean to, really. While talking to...maybe more accurately _at_ Jacob is easier than Joseph, he’s still well aware that talking about this with either of his brothers might be deemed inappropriate. But Hurk isn’t the oldest man that John has taken to bed, not by a longshot. “So are you.”

Jacob is forty-two, actually, though John knows nothing of his partners, past or present. Doesn’t even know if there’s been anyone. At least not in the last year they’ve been reunited. Jacob doesn’t even express an interest in anyone. Joseph, even in all his preaching about salvation, at least looks at women, sometimes, there’s evidence of temptation. 

“Be careful,” Jacob huffs, “call me if there are any problems.”

John can’t help the warm feeling that spreads in his chest. Jacob cares, in a way no one else ever has. And their twenty-odd years apart hasn’t changed that. It might be frustrating, sometimes, that Jacob hasn’t quite wrapped his head around the idea that John is nearly thirty, but maybe neither of them are ready yet, to accept the time they’ve lost.

“I will,” John promises.

\--

Hurk is waiting by his truck in the Grand View parking lot, engrossed with something on his phone. John has to park a couple of spots away and approaches silently, trying to sneak up on Hurk. 

He’s wearing the same dress shirt as the other day, the grey gingham that almost fits. It might be the only “nice” shirt that Hurk owns. Different boots from the last time, these ones newer, shiny around the toes. Despite his height, Hurk’s cuffs drag on the ground, fraying the denim around the hem. He’s buying them in a too-long length. 

John’s sneak attack is foiled when Hurk looks up from his phone, breaking into a wide smile and running his fingers through his hair. No bandana this time to keep it back, but no product either, just soft and fluffy, falling into his forehead when he moves his hand away. 

“Right on time,” Hurk comments, shoving his phone back into his pocket, “sorry that uh, it’s maybe not as fancy as you’re used to.”

John tilts his head, forcing a half-smile, he’s practiced in the mirror exactly how it looks across his features, coy and closed off, inviting more. Now, it graces his face without much conscious thought. This is just how he appraises men he might think of sleeping with. Has a different, no less precise, look for women. There’s no more meaning to it than that. “I’m not as fussy as you think.”

Hurk pushes himself up off the side of the truck and heads off to the entrance, hands shoved in his pockets along with his phone and wallet. He doesn’t know what to do with them. “I uh, told my daddy about you--” Hurk’s eyebrows raise, his cheeks going pink, “not what we were doing or nothing. I know that you don’t want...actually, I don’t but uh...I’m not bigoted I told you. But my daddy….anyway. I just said I was hanging out with you today. And uh…”

John smiles despite himself when Hurk opens the door for him, holding the edge of it up above John’s head and then slipping in after.

“He just, he knows who you are. Said you’d bought a lot of property in Hope….that you were a lawyer in Atlanta. But you don’t sound like you’re from Atlanta….anyway. I figured...I knew that you were sophisticated and all, could tell that much. But, I just guess I’m in a little over my head is all.”

They’re standing in the lobby, open above their heads all the way up to the third floor rooms. Feels almost like there’s enough space for them to both drift away, rather than staying tethered to hardwood beneath their feet. And John kind of feels like he’s floating, on account of Hurk fussing so much over things that don’t matter.

“I’m not…” John thinks of how to explain, without just spilling out his disgusting past all across the lacquered floor. “You’re doing just fine, Hurk.”

Hurk looks up from where his eyes were locked on the floor, meeting John’s gaze instead. The difference in their heights means that really, it’s John who is looking up, while Hurk nods in the direction of the dining room.

No one pays them much attention, though the waitress seems to know Hurk. She puts her short-nailed hand on her hip, and asks him how his mother is doing? Hurk replies that he’s not sure, knows that the Xander fellow from the summer is supposed to come back in the spring. But otherwise, he doesn’t talk to his momma much, on account of the distance.

John is only a little keyed into that situation, that Adelaide got the Marina in the divorce, some thirty years ago. She’s a licensed real estate agent too, but doesn’t really handle properties anymore, so John has had no reason to meet her. With the island plot already bought and paid for, he had no reason to pursue the Marina. Joseph has the waterfront property he requested.

“Sorry about that,” Hurk apologizes, after the waitress has left, “they used to be friends, my mom and Darla. Guess they ain’t anymore.”

Their drinks come and John tries to pinpoint a suitable thread of conversation. He doesn’t want to ask Hurk about his family, because he’s not keen on answering questions about his own, at least not yet. Oh, he’d be more than happy to speak of his brothers now. It’s the matter of history that gives him pause.

He honestly doesn’t know if Hurk has an occupation. And doesn’t know if it’s a thorny subject or not. Given the kind of wealth Hurk’s father manages, it’s not as if his son has to work. Still, it’s as good a topic as any, and if Hurk deflects, John won’t push.

When asked about his job, Hurk’s face brightens. He sets his beer back on the table, leaning forward to get closer to John. “I uhm, it’s not all, strictly above board. I maybe shouldn’t be discussing it with a man of the law.”

John does his best to smile back, though, in all honesty, Hurk’s comment makes him a bit nervous. Not because of the legal implications, but because he’s been through rehab and out the other end in the last eighteen months, and the last thing he needs is to fall into bed with someone who is dealing.

“I’m a defense attorney.” John can at least tell Hurk that much, “it’s my job to undo the work of law enforcement.” He doesn’t know if he should be using past tense when it comes to his career in law.

With that, Hurk leans back, shaking his head, “I trade in explosive weaponry. I, uh,” he laughs, cheeks turning pink, “I had a much cooler line about it in my head. Like maybe you’d be impressed. But I don’t handle shipments here, in the US, I mean. I just got back from the Rook Islands a few months ago. And it’s not….technically illegal there. I don’t know much about their laws to be honest. Didn’t seem to be that many, though.”

John is careful to keep his expression neutral. But his head spins. Hurk, who is too sugar-sweet and polite, fumbling and apologetic, is an international arms dealer? For the first time, John considers that he’s not the only one in this encounter hiding his true self. Because he just can’t imagine Hurk sitting at the table with the kind of men who buy and sell the weapons of war.

“I can’t say that was what I was expecting…” John admits. 

“My daddy doesn’t think...I used his money to start out, and he was none too pleased. But I swear, I’m gonna pay him back in full. And soon. My contacts are working out another lead. Might have to head out, before too long. Dunno for sure.”

John still can’t manage to understand how Hurk hasn’t been eaten alive. And when the topic of conversation shifts from the explosives themselves (and something nonsensical having to do with monkeys) to the Rook Islands, John is more than happy to just ask Hurk questions: About the people, the animals, the destinations. 

“Not much there for tourists, but I met some tourists. Well, he started out that way. We’re tat bros now,” Hurk unbuttons his cuff so he can roll up his sleeve, and John realizes that he’s not seen very much of Hurk, other than his dick. There’s some sort of tribal tattoo in black ink, curling around his forearm. The work looks good, purposeful. John can’t say that all of his decisions when it comes to marking up his body have been quite so deliberate. All he really concerned himself with was whether or not his shirt sleeves could cover up the evidence. 

John plants his elbows on the table, knowing it’s impolite. He shows Hurk the backs of his hands, still bare, “I’m thinking of getting something done on them next?”

Hurk reaches out, grabbing John’s wrist and turning it around so he bush against palm, then around again on the back. It’s such a simple thing, gentle, warm. “You have really pretty hands. Long fingers,” Hurk says.

Their meals arrive and Hurk tells him a little more about Jason Brody. John finally admits that he has brothers, two of them, and an adopted sister. Faith didn’t come with the caravan. She’s flying into Hope next month while she finishes settling her accounts in Atlanta. Hurk would learn about them eventually, and it’s better to hear from John, rather than think that he was deliberately withholding information. 

“They’re all much older than I am...Jacob by fifteen years, Joseph and Faith by thirteen.”

“Aw,” Hurk says without a hint of sarcasm, “bet they took real good care of you.”

Explaining the circumstances of their childhood is a bit dense for dinner conversation, so John deftly takes the topic to Hope County. Hurk is a local, after all, and must know everything about the surrounding area.

He lets Hurk prattle about the elk hunting season, and how he’s never bought a license but he thinks maybe next year, if he doesn’t go out on another international job.

John doesn’t reach for his wallet when the check comes, Hurk reaching out and making grabby hands at the waitress to pass him the faux leather case. He pays in cash, shoving the check back in her direction before she can step away.

As they leave the dining room, Hurk brushes his fingertips over the backs of John’s knuckles, saying, “Anything you get here is likely to look good.” It takes John a moment to realize that Hurk has circled back around to the idea of John tattooing his hands.

“We can get a room,” John offers, under his breath, “your father’s back in town, right? And you’ve taken the opportunity to romance me, afterall. Would be a shame to waste…”

Hurk touches against his hand again, “People are gonna talk...that what you want?”

John hums, “Then take me to a cheap motel where they won’t talk and fuck me clean through the mattress.”

The noise that comes from the back of Hurk’s throat is more a whine than a squeak of surprise and John gets the distinct feeling that he’s making progress, whittling Hurk’s resistances down.

“Don’t wanna do that,..hold on.”

John waits against the lobby wall as Hurk steps up to speak to the receptionist.


	6. They say Practice Makes Perfect but there was no Warning Label about Lost Composure

“Room 304,” Hurk says, key clenched tightly in his fist, “race you there?” Without hesitation, Hurk bolts for the staircase at the far end of the lobby, half obscured by out-or-season potted ferns.

John stumbles just enough to catch how the receptionist behind the counter rolls her eyes at Hurk’s antics, before his competitive streak kicks in. Hurk has about ten seconds lead on him, so John will have to move fast to close the gap. Hurk’s heavy footsteps are already crashing up the stairs, giving away his precise location. John darts off towards the staircase, taking the steps two at a time to try and gain ground on Hurk. As he rounds the first landing, he catches sight of his target, racing to pull level before they hit the second floor.

Breathing deeply, John tries to ram himself in between the railing and Hurk as they make the next turn, slipping by and taking the lead. But, apparently, Hurk plays dirty, reaching out to grab John around his waist as he gets just a step ahead, and hoisting him off the ground in an easy, fluid motion.

Hurk laughs when John barks to put him down. But instead of acquiescing, Hurk throws John over his shoulder, slowing down with the added weight. And god, heat flares in John’s stomach again at the casual way that Hurk uses his strength. John is more accustomed to the kind of physique that comes from vanity, all lean lines and defined muscle groups, more for show than for function. But while there’s no denying that Hurk is carrying extra weight, there’s a strength underneath that positively makes John’s head spin with possibility.

John stops struggling so much, letting himself go a little lax over Hurk’s shoulder as he climbs the final steps up to the third floor. Hurk shifts his weight at the top of the landing, keeping John balanced as he gets the room key into his right hand, using the left to keep John from falling off his shoulder. 

He’s humming underneath his breath as he clicks open the lock. Facing away from the door and towards the open hallway, John gets a decent look around and confirms that no one is watching them. If Hurk was concerned about people talking about them before, John doesn’t know quite what he’s thinking now, dragging John back to a hotel room like a clubbed caveman bride.

Once inside the room, Hurk is careful about putting John back flat on his feet. He reaches out to run his fingers through John’s mussed up hair, dark strands between ruddy digits. Smiling, Hurk comments that John’s real light, asking playfully if he got enough at dinner?

“More than enough,” John says, taking a step closer into Hurk. He presses both of his hands over Hurk’s barrel-chest before surging up to capture Hurk’s tight-smiling lips with his own. “Doesn’t mean I’m not still hungry, though.”

Hurk grins down at him, letting his hands drift lower to circle around John’s hips. The warmth of him is something just short of electric. It’s not the piercing frantic arousal that John finds himself chasing. Always leaving John fried and burned and used after he’s achieved his high. This is something softer, sweeter, coiling in his gut. But that doesn’t mean when it’s all over, that John won’t be left eviscerated. 

“I uh,” Hurk laughs, looking up at the wood-plank ceiling so he doesn’t quite have to meet John’s eyes. “I did some research, you know, when I started thinking….about this. Just so I’d know what to do...but I didn’t think it would be so fast, and gosh, I might not be very good.” As Hurk speaks, he taps at John’s left hip, then his right and back again, playing John’s posture like a drum.

“Just relax,” John murmurs, skipping over Hurk’s lips this time to press his open mouth against Hurk’s neck. His skin tastes of salt and something bitter, his cologne, maybe. Almost already faded out, leaving a pleasant, if faint, musk behind.

Hurk breathes in sharply as John works his teeth and tongue against his throat, careful not to leave marks behind. John knows exactly how far he can push before there’s damning evidence. What licks and soft bites will fade within an hour’s time.

“Been thinking about your cock for ages,” John purrs, “how big and thick, you’re gonna split me open on it, aren’t you? You want to give it to me?” John tries to coax.

Hurk whines, “Don’t wanna hurt you, I really don’t. We don’t have to…”

“But I want,” John insists, starting to drop down to his knees. He mouths over the front of Hurk’s jeans, pressing the fat weight of Hurk’s semi into his mouth through the barrier. It’s so big and warm already.

John looks up through his lashes, a position of submission he’s been told suits his features, his disposition towards annihilation. That a whore like him should always be on his knees, grateful for what he’s been given. Being put in his place has always felt like confession of a different sort. A requirement. An obligation.

“Are you sure?” Hurk asks softly, carding his fingers through John’s hair again, careful not to tug.

From his position on the floor, John nods, his hands reaching up to work Hurk’s buckle open.

They’re both quiet for a moment. More silence than John can really bear. He wants to tell Hurk to say something, anything, but his mouth is too-well occupied working its way around around the head of Hurk’s cock, nothing more than that for the moment. If John pushes too fast, too hard, Hurk is likely to slam on the breaks again.

He fists the rest of Hurk’s cock in his hand, preventing himself from getting too ambitious with it. John’s lips stretch around the girth of it, pulling at the corners of his mouth. It’s easier this time to get it down, less frantic. And, well, if John has been practicing with his thickest toy in the quiet of his bedroom after the others have gone to sleep, that’s between him and God.

Hurk’s moan is tight and reedy, reverberating cross his skin, enough that John feels it against his teeth. He’s trying to hold back, his whole body tense as John adjusts his grip to take another inch towards the back of his throat. John knows for certain that he can make Hurk come like this, thinks about the semen hitting the back of his throat, on his face and in his hair. He wonders how much Hurk would come? What noise he’s about to make?

But John wants more than that. Can’t get the idea out of his head that he wants Hurk’s cock inside of him, fucking John until he can’t remember that this is a sin. Because it doesn’t matter, John can’t shake the disease of his desires. So he might as well punish himself in the process.

Pulling back, John keeps on stroking Hurk’s dick, pressing a kiss to the head before pleading his case, “I want you to fuck me.”

“I...oh shit,” Hurk reaches down to bat John’s hand away, “you keep on like that and I won’t be able to do nothing else. You’re so good at that. So good at everything...” 

John feels a sick sense of pride welling in his stomach.

“Um,” Hurk stumbles, then laughs, “paid for the bed...might as well use it.”

Finally, they’re getting somewhere.

“How do you want me?” John teases, rising up from his knees and shoving at Hurk’s chest again, trying to back him up towards the bed.

Hurk grabs both of his wrists, tugging John’s hands away from his pecs and sighing nervously. “I told you,” he turns John’s hand over, lacing their fingers together and then kissing the back of John’s hand, “don’t wanna hurt you.”

“You won’t,” John tries to lull. He might not, strictly, be telling the truth. But there’s no way for him to know exactly how much Hurk will hurt going in until they try. 

John gets Hurk against the mattress, shoving him down and letting Hurk’s legs dangle off the side while he climbs on top. Their fingers stay laced through it all, John just as unwilling to let go. 

It feels nice, to have Hurk’s thicker fingers between his own. Hurk squeezes down, spreading John’s digits a little wider in the process. His cock is still hard and heavy and exposed between his legs, and John is careful as he grinds against it, angling his hips just right that Hurk can feel his arousal too, evidence of how much he wants to be here. Of how hard he gets at the mere thought of Hurk plowing into him.

“You can go in slow as you’d like, Hurk,” John coaxes, “promise you I’ll take it.”

With his free hand, Hurk wraps his arm around John’s waist, keeping them tangled together against the sheets, “you uh..okay I did research, I told you. But I haven’t gotten this far yet. Kinda...got stuck on the earlier lessons...umm.”

John laughs, bringing his face in close to Hurk’s, “what kind of lessons, hm?”

“Okay, okay,” Hurk concedes, rolling his eyes and smiling back, “I just, you know, got some porn with guys. Figured it was as good a place to start as any. But then, I think I’m missing a couple of steps because….uh, they looked pretty wet down there and I’m pretty sure you don’t work like that. At least, I know I don’t work like that, and….Jesus.”

“Lube,” John smirks, “stretching before the scene, probably. Let’s them act like it’s more spontaneous…”

“Ohhhh,” Hurk exclaims, honest to God having a revelation.

“I take it you haven’t had anal with women, either?” It’s worth double checking. While most of John’s encounters hadn’t slept with men before, they at least had experience with anal sex.

“Oh God no,” red spreads across Hurk’s cheeks, creeping all the way to his ears. “Too...you know...big. Uh, some ladies like it in their, you know...like it normal. Told you before, though. Didn’t want it in their mouth...or I guess...that too.”

“Well,” John grins, stretching out Hurk’s arm to pin their twined hands above Hurk’s head, sinking into the mattress with the pressure, “I want it.”

Hurk’s eyes practically roll back in his head as he mutters, “Oh God.”

John knows now that he’s won this round, disentangling his fingers so he has both hands free to work open Hurk’s shirt. The white cotton sleeveless underneath pulls tight across Hurk’s chest, a half-size too small probably. But John doesn’t let that stop him from sliding both hands underneath the hem, pressing his palms to the soft swell of Hurk’s stomach, creeping up his chest, coarse hair scraping against his palms.

Hurk laughs again, thin and nervous, something about not being quite so fit. Likes food too much, and beer, and sitting around on Saturdays done nothing at all, Sundays too...and maybe Mondays...when he’s not working, there’s not an awful lot to do but play video games with Sharky and drive around the county.

“I don’t…” John chooses his words carefully, wants to make sure he gets this right, “I want to see you.”

Hurk resists a little at first, refusing to lift his shoulders back up so John can push his dress shirt off. But they manage to get there, and John finally gets a clearer look at Hurk’s torso, even if he’s not about to wrestle with the undershirt this time. Both of Hurk’s arms are tattooed, the left more heavily than the right, dark, tribal looking ink from his wrist to elbow, something John wants to look at in more detail later. He’s certain that there’s more he can’t see yet, too, hidden underneath Hurk’s collar.

“God, you’re hot,” John purrs, easier this time to admit with arousal hanging in the air. Beneath him, Hurk hisses, his face bright, forehead slightly damp already.

“I just...you shouldn’t say things like that,” Hurk sighs when John reaches between them to start stroking his cock again. “Shouldn’t lie. You’re too pretty for that. Too good.” Precome beading at the head, John pulls down to get Hurk’s cock wet with it. 

“Did you bring condoms?” John asks. He slipped two into his wallet before leaving the ranch, but they’re sized for him, not Hurk.

Hurk covers his face with both his hands, laughing into them and admitting, “Yeah, but I uh….don’t think that I’m presumptuous or nothing….I didn’t really think...but you’re supposed to be prepared.”

John beams, grabbing one wrist in his hand and pulling Hurk’s arm aside so he can see his face. He leans over far enough that their noses bump together. “What a good little Boy Scout you are.”

“Didn’t stay a Boy Scout for long,” Hurk admits, “my daddy didn’t like it. Thought...it doesn’t matter.”

Frowning, John should just say something clever about Hurk not bringing up his father in bed. Something lewd and suggestive. And the comment is right there, slick and perverse on the tip of John’s tongue. But he holds it back.

“John…” Hurk says, just above a whisper, quiet enough that the heat coming in through the vents almost drowns out the name, “I’ll fu— we can have sex, sometime, okay? I promise sometime, next time even, but…” he grabs hold of John’s biceps, squeezing tight. His pale eyes close and stay that way. “But um,” he laughs, “I’m maybe not gonna last that long today. Not with all the warm up and uh...I was practicing for something else…”

“Practicing?” John asks.

Hurk grabs John around the hips, nodding, “Yeah,” before flipping them both over. John lands with his back against the mattress, Hurk leaning over him, hips still slotted between John’s parted thighs. And oh, that was so much more graceful than John could have anticipated, with the endearing clumsiness that Hurk normally displays.

Hurk’s hands are rougher though, sliding to John’s belt and working it open. John can feel his hands tremble, but the buckle falls open and Hurk attacks his fly next. Dropping to the floor on his knees, Hurk takes John’s pants with him, fiddling with his shoes so that the pant legs actually come off clean.

Propping himself up on his elbows, John gets a good view of Hurk on his knees, staring down John’s cock with a contemplative face. “Watched a bunch of stuff,” Hurk admits, “read a little too but it was kind of hard to pay attention sometimes but….uh...I really really tried. I don’t want to mess this up.”

Oh, God, Hurk intends to blow him….

...it’s not as if John wants to say no.

John has had women suck him, but never men. The men he’s slept with have never been the type, “straight,” just looking for a hole, mouth or ass, doesn’t matter which, to get off with. John’s pleasure has never really been one of their concerns. And as much as John already has conceded that this thing with Hurk is different, that Hurk is kinder, less self-centered, he’s still a straight man going for a tour of alternative pleasures. This isn’t something John expects him to do.

Next, Hurk will be telling John that he can fuck him.

Oh, now there’s an idea…

...for later though, later.

Because Hurk wraps his hand around the base of John’s cock a little too hard and tight, before putting the head past his teeth and sucking down. There’s no rhythm, no finesse, but Hurk keeps pushing down on it, wet and warm and pleasant in its novelty. The sight of it is better than the sensation. John feels weirdly detached from his body altogether, like it’s not his dick that Hurk is sucking, but someone else’s. Like he’s watching a porn that specializes in blue collar aesthetics dressed up just enough to be palatable to a wider audience. Hurk’s hand is ruddy, even pinker looking pressed up against John’s dark pubic hair. 

But even despite Hurk’s inexperience, John knows it should feel better than it does. It should feel like something. 

Hurk’s teeth catch by accident on the delicate skin of John’s shaft and he hisses. That actually hurt and Hurk, sweet Hurk pulls back, his lips fattened up and glossy with spit, eyes a little wide and already trying to apologize for messing up. But he didn’t do anything wrong. Didn’t do anything but extend John a foreign sort of kindness. And before Hurk can offer any more self-deprications, John slides off the bed to join him on the floor.

John cups Hurk’s face in his hands and kisses him, wet and needy, trying to pour his appreciation out without having to explain. Without needing to lead Hurk through the weed-choked paths of his depravity. Hurk’s arms wrap around him, pulling John close and keeping him anchored across Hurk’s lap. 

“Just...touch me a little, please,” Hurk begs, digging his forehead into John’s shoulder, “I’ll get better, I promise I’ll get better, for you, you deserve it, but…”

John breathes in deeply, working Hurk’s cock in his hand, not caring when Hurk’s body tenses underneath him that he spills all over John’s shirt. He didn’t bring a change of clothes. Hurk’s arms tighten around him, still promises falling that John is so handsome, so smart, so good. That he’ll learn. He can learn even if he’s stupid.

“You’re not stupid,” John says, tangling his fingers in the back of Hurk’s hair. Hurk’s lips are against his throat again, while John tries to make his erection fade. He can jerk off later, thinking about this, sort through the stumbling mix of emotions that will disorient him completely, if he lets them get to him.

Hurk shoves his hand between them, grabbing John’s cock and stroking. He’s gentler this time, just slow, languid tugs. “Help me, okay?” he asks. “Help me this time and I’ll do my best to remember for next.”

John swallows hard, wrapping his own hand around Hurk’s larger one. He’s not entirely sure that he can show Hurk what to do, the scale of their palms, the texture, is so different. And John has become shamefully accustomed to coming with something inside his ass as of late. 

“Use your fingers,” John explains, “put two of your fingers in me.”

Hurk tilts his head just enough to look at John, frowning. “Are you sure…”

John nods, “put them in my mouth first, I’ll get them wet.” Obediently, he opens his mouth, waiting for Hurk to shove his fingers inside.

At first, Hurk just rests the pads of his fingers against John’s bottom lip, pressing it down a little. John wraps his lips around both digits, sinking down until he has them both deep enough inside to get them properly wet. Deliberately, he sucks around them, pressing his tongue in between to deposit enough saliva that they’ll stay wet. Hurk moans, a needy, desperate sound, when John flicks his tongue at the webbing between his fingers.

Pulling off with a plop, John lifts up his hips, urging Hurk to press inside. Spit wouldn’t be enough for Hurk’s cock, not by a long shot, but John fucks himself frequently enough that Hurk’s fingers should have no trouble getting in with a little added moisture.

He grips down hard on Hurk’s shoulders, “Start with one,” he explains, “but as soon as it slides in, add the second. Don’t wait too long.”

Nodding into John’s shoulder, Hurk snakes his hand back around, pressing gently at John’s entrance. John coaxes him to press harder, laughing a little, “Like you mean it,” and Hurk slips in. “That’s it, that’s it,” John soothes, even though he’s the one bearing down on Hurk’s thick finger, “mmm can take the second one, need it,” he gasps, rutting against Hurk’s stomach and trying to prove how ready he really is.

Once Hurk’s middle finger is buried inside, John starts to feel the giddy, accomplished. He wraps his hand around his cock, starting to stroke as Hurk slowly drags his fingers, deeper, then pulling out back towards the surface.

“Just like that,” John urges, his skin feeling electric now. Hurk is nowhere near his prostate, but that’s not the part that matters. John can fill in all the blanks inside his head, fisting his cock and bucking his hips just enough to press Hurk deep inside.

“How are you this good?” Hurk whines, “how are you this good to me? Gosh, you’re so pretty and smart and...perfect, John...you’re so…” Hurk’s voice cracks just as John feels his abdomen tightening, come spilling out over his fist. His pulse is racing, head pounding. He feels small and lost and alone as Hurk pulls his fingers out.

Hurk awkwardly holds his hand away from John’s body, using the clean one to hold him tight as they tumble backwards onto the carpet. Hurk smiles brightly, looking up at John over top of him.

John...didn’t know. Doesn’t know. He still feels adrift and odd. Not the sort of detachment he felt earlier when Hurk sucked him. But something else. Something huge and terrifying. Something lurking underneath what he already knows about himself. And he fears that it is more vile and terrible than he might be able to contain.

“Um, I think maybe I should wash my hand but….” he’s still running his clean hand up and down John’s back. “Get into bed, yeah? We might as well uh, well, I don’t think I can go again any time soon. But I don’t want to leave neither.”

John can only wordlessly hum, too terrified of what he might say if he tries to speak.


	7. Truncated encounters for a new distraction

John’s phone rings, almost vibrating off of the oak side-table, the thin metal casing tap, tap, tapping against the wood. Reaching over, he grabs the phone before it manages to slide off the edge. His eyes won’t focus fast enough and he picks up without knowing for certain who it is.

“Hello,” his voice is slightly hoarse. He tries to clear his throat.

“John?” It’s Jacob, “where are you?”

Only then does John realize he’s not in his bed at the ranch. The Grand View, right. He hadn’t intended to fall asleep. Just...rest his eyes a little bit, curled up against Hurk’s chest, one arm slung around his waist. They must have untangled at some point during the night. Hurk’s gentle breathing next to him confirms that he’s still asleep.

John sits up in bed, looking for the alarm clock. One-twelve in the morning. Rubbing his hand down the front of his face, John tugs at his beard and asks, “is Joseph upset?”

Jacob huffs on the other end, “No, didn’t say a thing about you, John. I didn’t expect you to be gone so long….wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

John’s not entirely sure where he tossed his clothes last night and the blinds are closed, keeping out the moonlight. He stumbles around the room for a minute, managing to find his shirt and jeans in a crumpled heap in one corner, mixed in with Hurk’s button down and pants. Hurk must have tossed their clothes in together at some point. John doesn’t remember.

“I can come home now,” John squeezes the phone in his hand, waiting for Jacob’s reply. He knows this is potentially...bad for Joseph’s image. Even though Joseph hasn’t said a word to him, one way or another, about the possibility of him….dating.

“That’s up to you, I just wanted to make sure you weren’t getting into trouble.”

“John?” a groggy voice lifts up from under the comforter, the soft sound of shifting fabric accompanying Hurk moving slowly, still half asleep. “Darlin, come back to bed.”

John’s mouth gapes as he searches for the right thing to say to Hurk, to Jacob, some desperate way to play all of this off as normal. But John isn’t even sure what normal means for him, anymore. Lying is what comes naturally, concealing his true self from his brothers, his lovers, and himself. He’s made this promise to get better, to be a better man. That doesn’t make this any easier.

“I’ll...I’ll be back to the ranch in a bit, okay. A little later,” he winces, unsure how much time they really have. At least for the moment, Hurk seems to want him to stay. And John wants to stay too.

He hasn’t even gotten as far as buttoning his shirt, but instead of finishing up with getting dressed, John shucks the shirt back off his shoulders. Choosing to climb back into bed, he leaves a little valley of dead air between himself and Hurk. It doesn’t really matter that he knows, and he knows for sure, that Hurk is handsy. That he almost certainly wants to feel John pressed up against him. John can know all these and still not act on it. Still feel the knot of anxiety that tells him, however irrationally, that he’s about to fuck this up.

Because he is going to fuck this up, undoubtedly. Not by cuddling against Hurk’s furred chest, feeling the heat and weight of his body against his own. That will be just fine. But sooner or later, somewhere down the line, Hurk is finally going to understand the kind of man John Seed is. And all of this will fall apart.

Maybe that’s a problem for later, though.

John scoots closer, just barely able to make out the off-white of Hurk’s smile. Too many cigarettes and too much coffee. John’s had those vices too. But also the funds and desire to have his teeth whitened from time to time. Giving off the illusion of a life not so harshly lived.

Like John predicted, Hurk throws his thick arm around his midsection, pulling John close up underneath his chin. John’s legs end up slotted somewhere in the tangle of Hurk’s, to the point that their body temperature falls into sync. 

It’s just barely there, when Hurk kisses into John’s hair, accompanied by a half mumble of something undoubtedly too-sweet.

“This okay?” Hurk asks, “you like this? Or too much.”

John manages to squeeze his hand in between their bodies, threading Hurk’s chest hair awkwardly into the gaps between his fingers.

“It’s fine, Hurk….it’s good.”

Hurk squeezes down around him a little harder and John almost manages to fall asleep again.

—

By the time John makes it back to the ranch, it’s mid-morning and there’s a sheriff’s cruiser parked in the drive, blocking off where he normally likes to leave his car if he knows he’ll be heading out again. A tiny, vindictive part of him thinks about parking in such a way as to block the deputy in.

He only comes to his senses when he sees Jacob and one of the deputies coming out from inside the house. The deputy can’t be more than twenty-five, maybe a little younger, with loose, silky hair and what must be at least three days of stubble. 

John parks his car off to the side, out of the way, and climbs out, heading up to the house with his hands shoved into his pockets. Ruins the line of his jeans but there’s something disarming about keeping his hands where they can be seen, but not quite so clearly. 

Jacob and the deputy sound like they’re arguing, the young officer hissing something underneath his breath. And, hand on heart, John actually watches as Jacob smiles in response, shaking his head before trying to shoo the deputy off.

Clicking his tongue, the deputy turns on his heels and starts marching down off the porch as John is coming up. Now that he has a good look at his face, John knows for sure this is Deputy Pratt. There have been four formal complaints by the locals since his employment began a year ago. Information John gathered by speaking nicely to the dispatcher, Nancy.

John raises his eyebrows as Pratt tries to storm past. Even though Deputy Pratt is at least four inches taller than John, he carries himself like he’s smaller. Like he’s nervous and unsure. John wonders if this is his normal demeanor, or the result of something Jacob said or did.

As much as John might want to introduce himself, Pratt has eyes for no one and nothing other than his car, nearly ripping the door off its hinges and throwing himself inside like a petulant child. There’s something about his behavior that coils tightly in John’s gut. He knows he’s prone to the same sort of dramatics and the scowl across Pratt’s face is too familiar.

Not waiting any longer to watch the deputy peel out of the driveway and head back towards the road, John instead turns his attention to his brother. He heads up the shallow porch steps, meeting Jacob on the deck. Jacob solemnly crosses his arms over his chest, telling John that Joseph isn’t around.

“Did he ask for me at all?” John asks, leaning forward to rest his forearms on the wooden railing around the porch. The paint is flaking off, but he hasn’t had enough time to look into improvements. If it were left up to him, he’d hire a professional work crew to take care of the things that still need fixing around the ranch. He’d had a crew clean and prep the interior, but not what needs to be done on the outside. Knowing Joseph, he’ll try to find a handful of people among his followers to do the work.

“No,” Jacob replies, narrowing his eyes, “walk with me a little? I want to take a look at those animal pens.”

They’re barely pens at all. Just some chicken wire arranged into neat rectangles, held up with wood posts. John isn’t about to deny Jacob his time, though. Before anything else, Jacob leads him to the shed around the back of the house. John really hasn’t taken the time to clean out anything when it comes to the grounds. The previous occupants left most everything behind.

The shed itself is locked with a thick, metal chain. John has no idea where the key is. Cursing, Jacob turns back towards the driveway, telling John to just wait there. After a minute, Jacob returns with heavy wire cutters, and goes about trying to cut through the chain. John wouldn’t think it possible to snap the metal links with just brute force, but there are a lot of fantastic things that Jacob can manage, and the lock clatters onto the floor.

Jacob tugs at the chain until it all comes loose. When the shed door swings open, they’re assaulted with a cloud of foul dust, clinging in their clothes and their hair. Jacob gestures for John to follow him into the shed. The lightbulb overhead doesn’t work, whether from a broken filament or because power to the shed has been cut, John doesn’t know.

Rooting around in the piles of junk, Jacob doesn’t seem to find anything of note. Or maybe he does, and John just doesn’t know enough to recognize when Jacob has found something of value. He pulls out a circular saw, a tool chest, and asks John to count how many planks of wood are stacked at the rear of the shed. 

Stepping over a child’s wheelbarrow, a dingy plastic sled, and a bicycle wheel that appears to have lost its frame, John makes his way to the back wall, where a stack of lumber is laid out on the ground. He kneels down low enough to start counting how many planks their are, using his hands to feel out each beam. The wood feels slightly damp, but John can’t tell if that’s because it’s actually wet, or just the chill in the dark shed.

“Eight,” he tells his brother.

“Reckon that’s enough,” Jacob says. “Come on back, let’s look at those pens.” He has the toolbox in one hand. John passes in front of him on the way out of the shed. Jacob pulls the door shut behind them.

Jacob doesn’t expect John to help him much, other than holding one end of the tape measure while Jacob marks down the dimensions. As he works, Jacob talks to himself, his voice barely cracking above a whisper. 

In the distance, he can hear some of Joseph’s flock in conversation, back in the direction of the house. But their discussions are little more than a dull drone, mixing in with the wind and birds. 

“Where’s Joseph?” John asks, as Jacob pushes himself to his feet. 

With the measurements tallied, he packs the toolbox back up. Jacob gestures back towards the greenhouses, not yet answering John’s question. John trots after him, assuming that it’s something that Jacob doesn’t want anyone else to hear.

“He’s upstairs. Locked in our room,” Jacob says. 

He and Joseph have been sharing one of the upstairs bedrooms while the ranch is still cramped with too many bodies and too little space. John has kept his own room, and the faithful that came in the first convoy are crowded into the other four. John hadn’t asked at first why Jacob and Joseph decided to share. Other than he’s not really sure that Jacob ever sleeps. 

John shakes his head, “Is something wrong?”

Frowning, Jacob gets the tape measure out again, “isn’t it always?”

John’s not sure exactly what Jacob means.

“He’ll be fine,” Jacob corrects quite suddenly. Like he’s revealed something that he shouldn’t. “A couple of the panes are broken. I want to get measurements here. Order replacements. I’ll be heading out to the Veterans Center next week. And I want to make sure you’re taken care of, before I go.”

Right. Jacob has been eager to get started on the project he’s planning up in the mountains. Joseph won’t be able to build on the island in the lake until Spring. Though he’s asked John to look into purchasing a number of mobile homes to save construction time. 

They measure the glass panels that will need to be replaced. Jacob explains he’ll have to order them, then probably drive to Kalispell to pick them up. They’re too fragile to be shipped to Hope directly. Too high a risk of breakage.

“How did your date go?” Jacob asks, out of character and without warning.

“Good,” John croaks, he’s sure that Jacob doesn’t want the details.

“Alright,” Jacob responds, boxing up the tape measure again. “Are you going to see him again?”

“Yeah, I think so,” John doesn’t even really have any doubts. He and Hurk didn’t make any specific plans, and John isn’t sure how much his brothers will need him in the coming weeks. Faith should be arriving soon as well, and unless she’ll be living at the ranch with him, he’ll have to work on finding her a property that fits her exacting tastes.

Jacob lets out a low grunt, not affirming, but not condemning either.

—

Joseph only ends up leaving four people, two men, two women, with John. He carts the rest off to the Veterans Center, along with himself and Jacob. The Center will need a lot of work before the freeze. And they’re racing against time.

John is waiting for two things; Faith’s plane to arrive and Jacob to call with a list of materials he’ll need ordered. Sitting out on the porch, he waits for both, idly flicking through his phone.

Faith’s chartered flight is supposed to arrive directly at the ranch. It will be the first plane to touch down here since John bought the property. He still hasn’t had the chance to buy a plane for himself. Soon, though, he makes a promise.

She’s due in within the next twenty minutes or so. As far as Jacob’s call, John has no idea of his timetable. They should have arrived in the Whitetails hours ago. John wanted to go with them, but someone has to be here to meet Faith.

He texts Hurk. They’ve been exchanging messages over the last few days, but there hasn’t been time to meet since their date at the Grand View. John’s schedule hasn’t allowed for it. Sort of secretly, he’d hoped that Jacob and Joseph would have left the morning before….to give them a night alone at the ranch. But it doesn’t even matter because John can’t exactly have someone over with the babysitters Joseph has left him with.

Most of their texts have been flirtatious, if somewhat innocent. John has been trying to test out Hurk’s limits when it comes to innuendo. And, much to John’s delight, Hurk seems a little more confident over text than he is face to face. Maybe because he has time to think about how to reply when John says _I miss your mouth._

_im alone at the fort until sunday if you want to come over_

John texts back _yes_ , though he doesn’t specify when. Hurk has made it clear that he doesn’t really work at all when he’s home in Hope. Other than a few phone calls to arrange his next trip. He says he’s planning on going to Kyrat. After a couple of late night google searches, John has decided that he’d rather Hurk go anywhere but Kyrat. But the truth is, stable, safe places don’t need men in Hurk’s line of work.

The sound of the engine overhead rouses John from his screen. Air traffic over Hope is virtually unregulated and the plane doesn’t have to be in contact with the ground to make its landing. John has just enough time to stand up, brush off his slacks, and run his fingers through his hair before the little chartered biplane’s wheels touch down.

He can hear Faith before he sees her, crying out with joy and thanking the pilot who flew her in from Missoula. She climbs out of the rear passenger compartment, her black hair a mess around her face, half come undone from the clips she uses to vainly try and hold it all in place.

“John!” she exclaims, holding out her arms in greeting. It’s obvious why Joseph likes her, they share enough outward traits. She’s long and lean, with crystal blue eyes that could almost convince an outsider that she really is the Seed brothers’ sister. But her jaw is sharper, her nose too narrow. John has never understood why Joseph wants her as a sister, and not a lover.

John lets her embrace him, though he’s still stiff with his arms and unsure of his posture. She grabs his shoulders in both hands and pulls him back far enough to plant a kiss on his forehead. In heels, she’s an inch or two taller than John. In flats, a full two inches shorter.

“I hope your flight went well?” John asks.

The two men Joseph left behind have already materialized, pulling Faith’s luggage from the plane and thanking the pilot. John paid him in advance, but politely thanks him for his time and for delivering his sister safely.

Faith fusses with her hair on their way back to the ranch house. They need to give the pilot enough space to get turned around and depart. She laughs, saying that she’s not keen to repeat the experience of four connections just to reach her new home, but she supposes she won’t have to leave any time soon.

John knows a little bit about her background, though he suspects that there is much that she doesn’t share with him. Joseph probably knows everything. But when John first met her in Atlanta, he did what he could to trace her history. No family of note, but a brilliant education, a string of internships leading to a cutorial appointment at the CDC museum. She's rather unlike most of Joseph’s flock, but her magnetism is undeniable. John isn’t sure how she’ll fare in Hope County. But then again, he’s not so certain about himself, either.

In his pocket, his phone buzzes. Out of habit, he grabs for it, checking the screen to see if it’s Jacob or Hurk. But of course it’s Hurk, Jacob isn’t going to text.

“Oh,” Faith exclaims, plucking the phone out of John’s hands before he realizes what’s going on, “who is this?”

John snatches for his phone, his face warming in embarrassment, and anger. But he beats back his sudden rage, clenching his fist around the phone until the sides dig into his palm. “Real estate contact,” he growls.

Faith hums in response.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are always appreciated.


End file.
